Olives and Greys

Happy New Year to all of you. Winter has finally arrived, and with that so have the new tactics. Winter fishing all begins with layering being the number one priority. If you're one of those that have to get to the river early then you know how cold it is around 8 or 9am. These hours can be brutal to most, and for good reason. Put on the heavy jackets and stay ankle deep till the sun begins to rise. For some reason I haven’t grown out of this even though I tell people to get to the water around noon. I tend to show up early when it’s freezing and fish aren’t active, but I really like the “Grey” colors on a Pisgah morning. Something about it being so quiet all you can hear is the river. Its almost kind of spooky, but when I think of Pisgah National Forest, I think of the shaded rivers that don’t see much light, and tall dead Hemlocks. Never mind all the poetic stuff, let’s get down to the fishing. The Sun is your friend in the winter, and knowing where it will be at what time is what makes good days great days. The angler will begin to see midges as the light hits the pool just right, and soon to follow will be the “Olives”. Blue Wing Olives are probably the most liked bug in the winter time in the forest, and for good reason. They range from size 16-78ish especially in Western North Carolina. Olive hatches are one those things that can be flat out good, or slow and irritating. The best dry fly fisherman on the river can struggle during olive hatches, but that’s what makes it so fun at the same time. For example, you could have two fish rising in a spot for Blue Wings. One being a 8 inch brown, and a 18 inch brown. Both are rising eating the same bugs, but one might be harder to catch. These are wild fish by the way, not sure what stockers look at a BWO as. Sometimes that 8 inch fish is harder to catch during an Olive hatch, but this is why we show up to the river. It’s all one big game between you and your fish. My buddy Brandon and I were fishing one Winter day a few years ago. Let me just say we had already caught enough fish to go home and enjoy our afternoons, but there was this one fish in the tail out rising to Blue Wings. Brandon lined up with the fish and continued to drift as he did with all the other ones he caught. This was a different fish. It had a little more pep in his step. You would think by the way he was rising it would eat the first drift. NOPE!!!! After 10 or 15 drifts I told Brandon forget about it man look at all the fish ahead of us rising. Brandon said “yea, but I want to catch this fish”. I watched him for 45 minutes making “perfect” drifts with different bugs. At the time, I didn’t understand why he was doing what he was doing. There comes a point where the angler is trying to perfect his/her craft, and this was a perfect example. I could see what he was thinking by every cast he made. The cast, the time of the mend, the slack, and the patience during every drift. He continued to change it ever so slightly cast after cast. This was in a peak hatch also, the bugs were poring off for us in this particular hole. Brandon threw a drift to the fish again, he mends, feeds slack then BOOM!! The fish finally sips it so perfect. Brandon sets the hook on a beautiful 17 inch Brown Trout, and breaks him off after 2 seconds of head shakes. I feel like I lost the fish and look at Brandon with disbelief. I tell him “ that sucks man”. He responds, “ I don’t care. Im just glad I got it right”. I get it now what Brandon was doing that day. He had perfected the drift with that fish. It’s all a game, but at the end of the day we want to get better as we play. If you can brave the cold, deal with numb toes, and perfect your drift. You might just enjoy it and catch a few fish.